A better Letter

Stan here:

Many of you responded to my request that you e-mail Deb and I thank you for that.  Today around 2PM it looked like she was experiencing some relief from the pain.  Deb and I watched a movie today.  It had a few humorous lines and as they hit the screen I saw the old smile on her face and frankly that is the first time I have seen this in a while.

We have had some trouble getting the communications figured out between Hospice and the care facility she is in but today we had some good meetings to get everyone on the same page.  I am not sure why this has to be hard and sometimes it would be easy to do some finger pointing but I think we have it figured out.  We are going to attempt to bring Deb home for lunch on Sunday.  All the family is going to do what we can to make this happen.

It is very difficult to tell if the problems with pain could be controlled with medication or if they are due to the progression of the disease.  And there is a fine line of controlling pain to the level that she can be conscious and aware compared to be knocked out and sleeping all of the time. It is our first experience with this.  So it is difficult to determine the correct path on this.

When I arrived at the room today she was enjoying a time with Mieke and her daughter so my guess is that our best path right now is to work on the pain issue.  We are getting there but even though the pain might be a little less it is still rather strong.  As many of you know Deb is a tough soldier so I know when she says she is in pain that it really has to hurt.  It mostly comes from her midsection area and frankly most of the meds do not touch it all that much.

It was however good today to see the smile return for a few moments so it is better than before and that is a blessing.

Stan